Spain prepares to face the heavily favoured U.S. in the men’s basketball final, trying to hold to the belief that anything can happen on the court

Russian forward Andrei Kirilenko (L) challenges Spanish guard Fernando San Emeterio during the London 2012 Olympic Games men's semifinal basketball game bewteen Russia and Spain at the North Greenwich Arena in London on August 10, 2012.

Photograph by: Mark Ralston
, AFP/Getty Images

LONDON — Men’s basketball is not about competitive balance. Not here, and not in the NBA, which hijacked the Olympics on Friday. The United States played Argentina in the Olympic semifinal, and Argentina was within five points early in the third quarter, and Argentina got its doors blown clean off. Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony took turns hitting three-pointers, and LeBron James did whatever he wanted, and the U.S. won 109-83. Easy money.

"I’ve said it: I think we’re better than we were in 2008," said Chris Paul, the best point guard in the world. "Because we’re all better. It’s hard to believe Kobe Bryant and LeBron can be better than they were in ’08, but everybody is a lot better. We got a lot more shooters, a lot more athletic, and this team really, really plays together."

They added Durant, too, who is like basketball rocket fuel. This team is a machine right now, fuelled by the ability to break down opponents, the willingness to pass the ball, the ability to rain down three-pointers, and the ferocity and athleticism to defend, and they will play Spain for the gold medal on Sunday. They have flaws, but nobody has fully exposed them yet. It may be that nobody will.

And all anybody could talk about afterwards was the fact that back home, the Los Angeles Lakers traded Andrew Bynum, the league’s second-best centre, for Dwight Howard, the league’s best centre, if probably only about the fourth- or fifth-best centre in franchise history. The Lakers now have Kobe, Howard, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol, who happens to be the best player for Spain. The Lakers are loaded.

"We got Pau for virtually nothing, so history does repeat itself," said Bryant. "Look, I’ll probably play two or three more years. [After that], the team is his. I’m excited for the Lakers franchise, because this is a guy who can carry the franchise well after I’m gone. So it should be his. He should be willing to accept the challenge."

Durant, who has two Oklahoma City teammates on Team USA, was asked for his thoughts on the trade, and said flatly, "Nah, I really don’t care." Chris Paul was asked about it, and said, "gotta play the games." Kobe was told the other players on the team might be angry at him, and he said, "I heard that they are, but I haven’t had those conversations yet." The Lakers were immediately installed by the bookies as favourites for the 2013 NBA title.

In other words, the NBA imitates the Olympics, as best as it can. Nine of the 12 members of the gold-medal-winning 2008 team — Howard, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Carmelo Anthony and Jason Kidd — play on five teams that are either located in Miami, Los Angeles or New York. During the 2008 Games they played for Orlando, the Lakers, Cleveland, Miami, Toronto, New Orleans, Utah, Denver and Dallas, respectively. Four forced trades before they could hit free agency; four left as free agents. The league has always concentrated power in marquee franchises, but this is getting ridiculous.

And in a way, it was Argentina’s fault, at least a little. This is probably the final Olympic gasp for Argentina’s great basketball generation, which is the only other nation to have won a gold medal in this tournament, in 2004, since NBA players were allowed in the Games in 1992. That, along with a string of failures at world championships, prompted USA Basketball to hand the reins to Jerry Colangelo. Colangelo got the world’s best players to play together, and become a team together. Bosh, Wade and James have said they first discussed becoming teammates in the NBA while on the team that beat Spain for gold in Beijing.

Here we are. The NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement cost a quarter of a season, and all it did was make the league’s also-rans a little richer for their work as farm systems, tomato cans, or extras in the play. In other words, it made the Milwaukees and Torontos and Clevelands of the world a lot like the teams that get blown out during pool play.

"I mean, look at our team," said Paul. "If it was on paper, if we didn’t have to play the game, we would walk out of here with an easy gold medal, right? If you put paper next to our team and every other team here, we’d have a cakewalk. But we’ve gotta play the games. You know what I mean? Regardless of who’s on who’s team, we gotta play the games."

He said the same about the Lakers, of course. It’s fitting that the U.S. will play Spain, which was fierce and proud in that wonderful 2008 gold medal game, when they forced the Americans to play great basketball under pressure. This time, Spanish point guard Jose Calderon said, "They are a great team for sure, but it is the Olympic final, and a lot of things can happen. They got a lot of pressure. They are the favourite, they are the ones that everyone thinks is going to winning everything by 20 or 30. It’s not easy to play like that. They’ve been doing a great job. But we’ll see."

Spain could play the perfect game, and lose. The game is rigged, just enough.

Russian forward Andrei Kirilenko (L) challenges Spanish guard Fernando San Emeterio during the London 2012 Olympic Games men's semifinal basketball game bewteen Russia and Spain at the North Greenwich Arena in London on August 10, 2012.

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